The Pearl bay

I miss Vladivostok a lot. Mostly the nature. It's really great here. "Zhemchuzhina" - "The Pearl" is a secret spot near a main Vladivostok beach called Shamora. Not that secret though. All photographers and artists know about it, so you can see traces of oil paints everywhere on stones. 

The Seal stone (on the right)

A turtle?

A responsible way of traveling

An absolutely new idea of traveling came into my life in 2007. It was international hospitality exchange networks (such as couchsurfing.org and hospitalityclub.org). First I was only a host, people from all over the world came to my place in far away kingdom called Far East telling amazing stories of their life and trips. It completely has changed all my life.

I was always into “eco” way of living, because all my relatives are biologists – scientists, teachers. I used to think about the pollution of the Earth since I was a child. Russian people mostly don’t really care about anything else, but their today's satisfaction and entertainment. My heart was bleeding when I saw even my friends, people who I knew for all my life, putting garbage to a heap next to a beach, as “there was a garbage already”. I tried to reduce my own eco trace. So, I was glad to find this new way of traveling.

There’s ecotourism, when you visit eco-places and enjoy the nature. But what if you want to do regular sightseeing? Book a flight, book a hotel again? No, there’s a way to do traveling in a responsible, sustainable way.

So… what did I find out during my trips to China, Vietnam and The European Union?

“How to travel with the minimal damage to the nature and maximal comfort to you”.

1.            Using hospitality network you decrease the amount of one-use things (toothbrushes, toothpastes, soaps etc). You take your stuff (including linen or a sleeping bag) with you, so there’s an economy of electricity as the hotel (hostel) doesn’t have to wash clothes and clean your room every day.

2.            You take part in everyday life; can share ideas and experience, spread the idea of a green life around.

3.            Mostly you cook at home for your host or your host cooks for you, so you use less throwaway packs, eat local food, eat “slow food”, not fast food.

4.            Hitchhiking (BTW, hitchwiki.org helped a lot) is the way to completely stop using planes, but it doesn’t suits everybody, so carpool would be suitable for those ones who don’t want to wait for hours for the lift on unlucky day. Sharing a car and fuel costs with the driver and another passengers you decrease consumption of the gasoline! (I used this site for Germany http://www.mitfahrzentrale.de and it worked out excellent. Also there's another one for the whole world http://www.carpoolworld.com/)

5.            Using bicycles inside of the cities for sightseeing help to fight with air pollution. There are tons of free or not very expensive bike tours in every European city and you can rent a bike very cheap or even buy it in all Asian countries. 

6.            In the end you save a bunch of money, which you can save it up for your next trip, or spend for saving pandas in China or for visiting amazing museums and galleries, enjoying a cultural heritage… whatever…!

I believe that’s the future of traveling!

CouchSurfing grass party in Vladivostok, back to 2008.

Here you can learn more about green economy: http://www.unep.org/wed/

Привет из Москвы/Hi from Moscow

Давно не писала я в этом блоге. Я переехала из Владивостока в Москву после 5 месяцев путешествий по Европе, так что теперь я живу вовсе не на краю России, а в самой ее сердцевинке. Название блога менять не буду, так как все равно сердце мое во Владивостоке. Работаю я нынче в юридической компании, которая занимается юридическими услугами - лицензированием, помощью при вступлении в СРО. Я, правда, не юрист, но мне все равно доверили заниматься вот этим сайтом: Критика приветствуется! Так что если кому понадобится открыть фирму и начать резко реставрировать, к примеру, памятники Ленину - обращайтесь, сведу с нужными людьми;)
http://www.licmaks.ru
------- Hey there! Long time no writing. Finally I arrived to the motherland, but now I live in Moscow, which is definetely not the end of Russia, but an absolute center of it. Anyway my heart is still in Vladivostok. Now I work for a legal firm, which helps to get different types of licences (it's a long and comlpicated process in Russia) and to register companies (and so on). Kind of boring stuff, but I'm doing this just for money and i'm trying to do my best. Here we are: http://www.licmaks.ru
So if you need to register or to get a licence in Moscow, let me know))

My city mood. Part 2.

Hm, lost some pics)
It's just a night sky. Not very professiona shot, but I like the sky's colour. There is no photoshop.

We still have trams and it could be so intersting and (somehow) beautiful inside.

Old house, old people.

It's very close to my house. These are barns, that belong to people who leave in a the nearest building. This kind of 2-floors buildings are like a transition between a village and a city. There are no bathrooms and these barns are the pantries for residents. Toilet's outside)

My city mood.

Walking with my small simple camera I take any funny pictires that I see around. They are just every day life of Vladivostok.
Our friend "Uncle Misha" - he sells vegetables, always remembers everybody's name and even gives some grape or a peach as a present.

My friends-gopniks))

He seems to be a gopokid - squating and eating sunflower seeds) Ok, may be not. Just a nice kid.

Some old ghost street.

A dog - bum. The food, the beer - what else does he need to be happy?)

A sad dog.

The center - mix of old and new.

Apple trees blooming.

My crayon world.

Sometimes I live in cartoon, crayon world. I'm surrounded by anime personages and alien landscapes. And...it makes me happy ^_^
Last weekend we (my friend Alex known as Lyosha, The Shy Photographer, and my guest from Italy Manlio) went to the Russian island. It's a very special place that is just 30 minutes by ferry from Vladivostok.
This is a huge island (like a half of my city) and ex-military base. There are a lot of stories to tell about it but I just want to load few pics with all crayon places and faces)

Somewhere on the seaside.

I'm a sad little mermaid...

We have a heap of such kind beautiful small bays over our region.


My mom looks more natural with this haircut)

Just old mine on the beach (but still active).


These couple were looking so russian that I felt something wrong. They are from Tver! (160 km from Moscow).

Monument of fallen pilots in a deep-deep forest.

I've found this thing on the beach and still curious what is it. Something from Greek ship.

We went through abandoned military base. Some people still live here.

Autumn is coming.

When autumn is coming all dogs are sad.


Summer dogs are so relaxed...

How I was a barman.

Why did I decide to become a barman? Well..i just had a thought I had no any skills that could be useful almost everywhere. I'm a journalist and can write only in Russian. I needed something "real"...something to make by my own hands. And as I had some practise in making mojito and have been succeeded I've bought a barman course. It cost 3500 rubles. It took two weeks for theory...We wrote down some words about cognac, rum, wines and so on. It was not only "theory"...we made some real cocktails every lesson. And of course we just had to drink it! Strawberry tini.
"Herring on the beach"

Vodka kiwi.

There were 6 coming barmen in my class - 3 girls and 3 guys. All are younger than me. Students just wants to have some own pocket money. Barman isn't an actual "profession" in Russia. It's just an easy way to earn some money (not a lot) for young people. So if you are 24 and you are still the barman everybody asks you why you don't climb the ladder. Next step of the career is a bar manager. My classmates:

I'm not going to climb a ladder. I just want to KNOW HOW TO MAKE COCKTAILS! So next part of education is a practice in clubs and cafes. I was sent in a one abandoned night club called "Pallada". It's huge and nobody's inside for all night! My young teachers were so nice and told me how to cheat a boss and clients) It's necessary if you want to earn more than 10000 rub per month (it's a usual salary for barmen in Vladivostok). When it was a half past midnight we just left the club and closed it.

Next time it was a big festival of break-dance and rap. Plenty people and everyone wants to drink. That was a real job! I was busy so much that couldn't even go to a bathroom till 4 at night. Mostly they wanted Redbull+vodka but I even made one pina colada. Hope that girl has survived...Next time nobody came. Again. But I had a very nice conversation with Andrey (on the right).

After my 4th time (that was quite successful) I decided to stop. But now I have a practice on my friend's birthdays parties. It seems they like it)
And I have a diploma! It's kinda international so I hope I'll be able to work with it abroad. Oh...I should say it's a great pleasure to see people like that you make) It's a new feeling for me because usually I can't see people's reaction for my article this instant.

Pictures of Japan sea through my office window.

Hidden place, Shevchenko "cul de sac", Vladivostok.

I've never been on this street right above the sea...It's seems old and very cozy. Full of peacefulness and sundown light. I'd love to live here.